Why Julie Doesn't Like Green (and how House knew about it)
by menolly-au
Summary: In Fidelity Wilson wears a green tie, claiming it was a gift from Julie, his wife. House declares that Julie doesn't like the colour green. How did he know that? Written in response to the dropped plotline challenge on House Wilson on LJ. House & Wilson friendship with optional subtext.


House paused in his rendition of Danny Boy as he heard a knock at the door of his apartment. He'd alienated all his neighbours to the point where they wouldn't bang on the door even to tell him to stop playing, so there was only one person that knock could belong to. It came again and he mentally catalogued it - it didn't quite have the desperate cadence of 'House, my patient has died and I need to drink and collapse unconscious on your couch'', but it wasn't the confident, "House, you've done something stupid and I've come to lecture you' knock either. Instead it sounded a touch exasperated. Hmm, interesting.

The knocking was getting insistent so he pushed himself up from the piano bench, went to the door and opened it, catching Wilson in mid-knock, a scowl on his face.

"About time," Wilson grumbled and walked in like he owned the place. In the hand that hadn't been knocking at his door was a bunch of flowers, fairly wilted, which he thrust at House. "Here, have some roses."

For one split second House's heart skipped a beat as he stared at the flowers. Did this mean? No, apparently it didn't, as Wilson was explaining.

"Green roses. It's St Patrick's Day so I got her green roses."

"Who?" Wilson scowled at him but it was a fair question. Wilson wasn't known as PPTH's panty peeler for nothing.

"Julie, my wife, you remember her? She certainly remembers you."

"Julie celebrates St Patrick's Day?"

"No, but she mentioned once that her grandmother had Irish blood," Wilson waved an arm around vaguely. "I thought she'd appreciate some commemoration of the day. A thoughtful gesture, she's always complaining that I don't make an effort anymore. So I thought, well, green roses. They're not easy to find, you know."

House could imagine. Tracking these down would have been both difficult and expensive. What he didn't know was why Wilson was here and not moving on to stage two of his plan - having 'my husband is such a great and thoughtful guy' sex.

"I gave her the roses and she took one look at them and threw them back at me."

"Thorns?" House hazarded a guess, his mind supplying a comforting image of Julie's perfectly groomed hands being pricked, multiple times, by the thorns on Wilson's roses.

"No, apparently Julie hates the colour green," Wilson said, his expression bewildered. "Hates it with a passion. She says it's the vilest colour on earth. That no-one with taste could like that colour, and well, several other things." He grimaced; the memory couldn't have been good.

"Getting her green flowers was a master stroke then; did you _want _to piss her off?" House observed. Mentally he filed Julie's aversion to the colour green under the heading 'Wilson Wives - things that annoy them'. Could be useful information one day.

Wilson thrust both hands up in the air, in a 'stop, don't shoot me!' gesture. "_ I didn't know! _When she was choosing a dress once apparently she told me that she didn't like the colour green. I was supposed to remember that, and not buy her green roses, or anything green, ever."

"Still doesn't explain what you're doing here," House said. "Just throw the crappy green roses away."

"Ho no, it's not that simple. My not remembering all the details of one casual conversation from three years ago apparently means that I'm a lousy husband and I don't care about her."

"You _are _a lousy husband," House pointed out.

"Thanks House, that's just what I wanted to hear." Wilson slumped down onto the couch. "I'm staying here tonight. I brought beer." He gestured vaguely to a bag which he'd dropped on the ground earlier. House went over to investigate it, throwing Wilson's green roses onto the coffee table as he passed. They weren't really green anyway, more of a white with pretensions of grandeur. Julie was a moron. He pulled out a bottle of the beer and peered at it suspiciously.

"It's green," he pronounced. Who the hell made _green _beer? "Did you get these for Julie as well? Because then I could see why she kicked you out."

"O'Reilly in radiology was giving them out to everyone today."

"She didn't give me any."

Wilson craned his neck around to stare at House. "After you wiped the entire schedule for the week off her computer because you wanted to get your patient in, and then you blew up the machine? I can't imagine why she didn't give you beer." He made a grabby sort of gesture with his fingers and House threw him the beer which Wilson almost caught.

"You're not going to drink that are you?" House asked, his attention was fixed on the bright green beer visible behind the glass.

For answer Wilson popped the top and drank a long satisfying gulp of it. He smiled gleefully. "Why not, unlike Julie, I_ like _the colour green."

House shrugged and joined him on the couch, flicking the television on with the remote. He grabbed one of the bottles and clinked it against Wilson's.

"To St Patrick's day." He took a long drink. Yeah, that wasn't bad. _You don't know what you're missing, Julie _, he thought.

Some hours later, when there was a respectable line-up of empty beer bottles on the coffee table, and the roses had been destroyed in an impromptu game of football, House surveyed the sleeping Wilson. He was crashed out on the couch, one arm dangling over the side and a silly drunk smile on his face. House turned the television off and went to the hall closet to fetch Wilson's blanket. Wilson's _green _blanket. He dropped it over him.

Wilson looked good in green.


End file.
